The traffic light government does not follow the advice of a commission to legalize abortion. In doing so, he refuses to carry out the will of the voters.

Complex and emotional issue: Ministers Paus, Lauterbach and Buschmann on April 15 Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa

Unsurprisingly, the traffic light government is sidestepping the idea of ​​abortion. Instead of implementing the recommendation of the scientific commission created by her and legalizing abortion, politicians from the FDP, SPD and Greens emphasize the divisive potential of the issue. Presenting the commission's report on Monday, Green Women Minister Lisa Paus called for understanding for political inaction. The issue is simply “complex” and “emotional.”

With such prose of concern, supposedly progressive parties create the basis for social division. If they followed their own call to objectivity, they would only talk about facts. According to this, criminalization prevents good medical care, as demonstrated by the Elsa study presented last week.

And the commission concluded that German law (abortion is prohibited, but not punished under certain conditions) is also legally unsustainable: the right of the fetus to life in the first phase of pregnancy is not equivalent to that of the woman pregnant.

The fairy tale of an engagement

The traffic light parties could explain this to the Germans. Instead, they continue to tell the fairy tale that conservatives have been telling society for decades. According to this, paragraph 218 is “a good compromise” that avoids a “culture war.” That's silly. A compromise would require there to be two equally strong sides: some want to allow abortions, others want to ban them.

In a 2023 survey, only 3 percent of respondents agreed with the latter. Even in the Union there are only a few hardliners who do not care so much about women's self-determination that they tend to give up their votes. According to a current poll available to taz, 77.5 percent of voters in the Union reject the illegality of abortion. So there is no sensible reason to leave the topic aside.